Dr Paul Allen

December 25 could not have been Jesus’ birth date. Early Christians did not even celebrate Jesus’ birth. And certainly did not celebrate Christmas on December 25 until long after the pagans had created a December 25 festival. Christmas is the cultural appropriation of the pagan “Birth of the Unconquered Sun.” The Persian cult of Mithras is also celebrated on December 25. The Gospels make no mention of any commemorations of Jesus’ birth. Nothing in the Book of Acts or the rest of the New Testament. And the first generations of Christianity did not celebrate Christ’s birth. In fact, such a thing was frowned upon. The Hebrew tradition from which Christianity came celebrated the passing of Jewish heroes. Not birthdays. Encyclopedia Judaica puts it bluntly. “The celebration of birthdays is unknown in traditional Jewish ritual. … The only reference to a birthday in the bible is that celebrated by Pharaoh.” (Gen 40:20) In fact, early church leader Origen of Alexandria openly mocked birthday c

For a long time, a certain breed of Biblical scholars has spent most of their time and effort trying to disprove the historical reliability of the New Testament. I’ve always found it strange that Europeans living in another continent and culture 2,000 years after the events would know better than writers from the same culture and roughly the same time. This would be like someone from China in the year 3050 commenting on the accuracy of the Bayeux tapestry, which records the Norman conquest of England. One of the modernist Biblical scholars’ favourite critiques is to observe that the writers of the New Testament were unduly influenced by their own theology, their agenda and the surrounding Greek and Roman culture. In making this charge, they assume that their own interpretation of the Scriptures is not influenced by their theology, their agenda and the surrounding contemporary culture. European Shepherding Differs From Biblical Shepherding Biblical scholarship is full of “cultural infec

English: Clement of Alexandria, from book 1, folio 5 recto of Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres grecz, latins et payens (1584) by André Thevet. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Author: Phil Vischer. We actually have very little clue as to what day Jesus was actually born. Though scientists and theologians have tried to pinpoint it, there is no way of knowing even whether or not he was born in December! We do know, however, why we celebrate Jesus on the 25th.  Gnostic Christians in Egypt first celebrated Christ ’s birth around 200 A.D.. Many church leaders identified January 6th as the day of Christ’s birth and thus celebrated Christmas then; today, we celebrate Epiphany (or the arrival of the Magi) on that day.  In the early Roman church , pagan holidays were often “Christianized” to help convert people to Christianity.  Several pagan holidays were celebrated on and around December 25th, include a day to worship the sun because of the solstice. In 336, a ch